Real Line Arrangements and Surfaces with Many Real Nodes

A long standing question is if the maximum number μ(d) of nodes on a surface of degree d in P( ) can be achieved by a surface defined over the reals which has only real singularities. The currently best known asymptotic lower bound, μ(d) 5 12 d, is provided by Chmutov’s construction from 1992 which gives surfaces whose nodes have non-real coordinates. Using explicit constructions of certain real line arrangements we show that Chmutov’s construction can be adapted to give only real singularities. All currently best known constructions which exceed Chmutov’s lower bound (i.e., for d = 3, 4, . . . , 8, 10, 12) can also be realized with only real singularities. Thus, our result shows that, up t…